WINDSOR, Ontario — In the last year, Sergio Marchionne took a couple of test rides in Google’s self-driving car, and he came away impressed along with the speed. Yet it is the breathtaking speed at which the technology is advancing, not exactly how fast the vehicle travels, that has actually truly grabbed his attention.

“Each time it got much better and better,” said Mr. Marchionne, the chief executive of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which is now collaborating along with Google. “It isn’t pie in the sky. People are talking regarding twenty years. I believe we will certainly have actually it in 5 years.”

Mr. Marchionne was speaking at the auto company’s plant here, which is starting to make a Brand-new minivan, the Pacifica. Under the partnership unveiled this week, Fiat Chrysler will certainly make regarding 100 modified Pacificas that Google will certainly outfit along with sensors and computers it has actually developed. The 2 companies will certainly put with each other a joint engineering team, based in Michigan, to hone the technology.

In his initial public comments on Fiat Chrysler’s agreement along with the tech giant, Mr. Marchionne acknowledged it was unclear exactly how far their collaboration will certainly go, or exactly how they will certainly share the outcomes of their work.

“We are approaching this in a permanently open-ended fashion,” he said. “We should grab to a stage where the vehicle is viable so we can easily discuss the spoils of that work. We are not there yet.”

Others in the industry are additionally rushing to put autonomous vehicles on the road in real-globe situations.

General Motors and Lyft, the ride-hailing start-up valued at $4.5 billion, intend to test a fleet of self-driving taxis in an American city as quickly as within a year, according to a individual that has actually been briefed on The 2 companies’ plans. That would certainly most most likely start using the technology inside the battery-powered Chevrolet Bolt, said the person, that spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the fact that he was not authorized to talk regarding unannounced initiatives.

G.M. and Lyft formed a partnership in January and said they planned to introduce “an on-need autonomous network” of self-driving vehicles. A spokesman from G.M. and a Lyft spokeswoman declined to supply added details regarding their plans.

Until now, Fiat Chrysler had said little regarding its autonomous vehicle plans. Mr. Marchionne spent considerably of 2015 focused not on vehicles of the future Yet on shaking up exactly how cars are gained today. In a blunt presentation he called “Confessions of a Capital Junkie,” he suggested the auto industry was headed for a crisis unless companies consolidated and stopped wasting billions of dollars to create engines and Various other components that customers never ever touch.

He after that tried, devoid of success, to persuade General Motors or Various other automakers to enter merger talks.

Some analysts were skeptical of the agreement along with Google.

“They are providing Google along with 100 minivans, which is great, Yet there’s not necessarily a great deal of ongoing collaboration,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst at the research firm Kelley Blue Book. “So it remains to be seen exactly how considerably job they actually do together.”

Other carmakers adore Ford Motor and Audi have actually gained no secret of spending millions of dollars to produce driverless cars, usually along with the SUGGESTION of heading off any kind of competitive threat that could come from driverless cars being made by Google and its Silicon Valley rival, Apple. Some have actually tried to recast themselves as “mobility companies” that will certainly give the means of moving People around, whether by cars they own, rent or hail via an app.

On Friday, Mr. Marchionne said the mobility concept was a “lofty ideal.”

He additionally said he was not imagining a merger along with Google, even though he was counting on the tech giant to insight Fiat Chrysler catch up in driverless vehicle technology. “We will certainly be strolling in a collaborative fashion along with them at their speed,” he said. “We are exploring along with them to permit us in to their world.”

He additionally said that rival automakers functioning on their own autonomous cars, in competition along with Google, were taking a risk that their investments might not pan out.

“It’s as well early in this process to make the call that is going to end up along with the winning solution,” Mr. Marchionne said. “Precluding progression along with others is a pretty dangerous bet.”